Jun. 29, 2016
As a follow-up to my post about the Euro 2016 Panini Stickers, I’ve now completed the collection with the help of an online swapping site and by buying the last 39 stickers directly from Panini. I also managed to write a new simulator, this time with additional collectors involved. I assume that each of N collectors will buy a packet of stickers and add any new stickers to their album. Then they attempt to swap any leftovers with the rest of their friends.
Jun. 25, 2016
Britain voted to leave the EU this week. It made for an angry and confused Friday morning. I posted snippy comments on Facebook at a rate of about one every fifteen minutes. I also knew that there was nothing I could do. Even when you feel like Charlton Heston at the end of "Planet of the Apes", you have to suck it up and accept that sometimes things don't go as you like.
Jun. 14, 2016
Envelopes containing swaps that have arrived in the post in recent days. It is nice to get letters from all over the country, even if they do just contain a selection of panini stickers. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have used the sticker swapping website to share my swaps with people all over the UK. I have sent swaps off to London, Bristol, Cornwall, Lancashire, Wales, and Gloucester.
Jun. 9, 2016
Time for a little gear review. This is the Logitech K380 keyboard. It pairs with devices wirelessly over Bluetooth. I bought it to use with my Apple TV, iPad and iPhone. It runs on 2 AAA batteries, but the supplied batteries are not rechargeable. The keyboard is light and portable but you definitely know you have it in your bag. It’s lovely to type on. For a go-anywhere keyboard it has a surprisingly nice feel to the keys.
Jun. 5, 2016
Sound the conspicuous consumption klaxon! 📣 I know it’s foolish but I decided to collect the Panini stickers for the Euro 2016 tournament this summer. I think it’s a more edifying waste of money than a series of group game accumulators that don’t come off. If this week’s long read in The Guardian is anything to go by, we really shouldn’t be giving any more of our money to betting companies.
May. 31, 2016
Album Digest May 2016 features the work of four bands or artists that I have reviewed in previous album digests. I also own (or will own) all of these albums on vinyl, so it’s handy that I’ve recently bought myself a record player! Radiohead “A Moon Shaped Pool” Radiohead released “A Moon Shaped Pool” online about three weeks ago and a physical version hits the shops later in June. As with all of their recent albums, it is (mostly) a slow burner that rewards multiple listens.
Tags: Music, Album Digest, May, Radiohead, Mark Pritchard, Brian Eno, Parquet Courts, Sixteen
May. 23, 2016
2016 marks the centenary of the birth of Werner Bischof, the talented Magnum photojournalist who died in Peru in 1954, aged 38. He travelled widely, making the most of an incredible talent for photography. After the second world war, this led him all over Europe to document its aftermath. As the cold war began, Bischof found himself documenting events further afield. We saw two exhibitions of his photography at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne.
Tags: Switzerland, Photos, Werner Bischof, Sixteen
May. 17, 2016
“Something Coming Through” is a science fiction novel set in the near future. A few years after a brief nuclear war known as “The Spasm”, an alien race known as the Jackaroo introduce themselves to humanity. The novel is funny, thoughtful, and politically charged. I found it to be a good read. The aliens have given humanity fifteen “gift” worlds and an automated way to access them. Think of the Docklands Light Railway but with space shuttles.
Tags: Paul McAuley, Books, Science Fiction, Sixteen
Apr. 30, 2016
This month’s album digest is a mixture of comparisons. First we compare the fortunes of old hands Underworld to even older hands the Pet Shop Boys. After that I’ve found two dance albums, one that I liked and one that I didn’t. I find it quite hard to write about dance music and so the comparison is quite useful. Sometimes it helps to work out why you like one thing and not another.
Tags: Album Digest, April, Music, Pet Shop Boys, Underworld, Charlie Don't Surf, Leon Vynehall, Sixteen
Apr. 11, 2016
Just before Easter Ingrid and I went to Lausanne in Switzerland for a few days. It was a much-needed break and my first trip out of the UK since I got back from South America. We caught an early train to Gatwick. It took a strange route along the coast via Worthing and Hove, which was annoying because we could have left later if a more direct train were available at that time of day.
Tags: Travel, Europe, Switzerland, Photos, Sixteen
Mar. 12, 2016
The Orb return with a new EP on the Kompakt label called “Alpine”. “Alpine” is split in to three tracks “Morning”, “Evening” and “Dawn”. The third of these was included on the 2016 edition of Kompakt’s annual “Pop Ambient” compilation, a gently drifting track with plenty of bells and yodels. A diversion from the sounds of Moonbuilding 2703 AD (and its presumably ongoing remixed companion EPs), but it sat nicely with the other tracks.
Tags: Music, The Orb, Sixteen, Electronic
Feb. 1, 2016
I thought I’d add three of my favourite David Bowie albums to my review of Blackstar to a form an album digest tribute. Also among my favourites but not included here is “Outside”, which will be included in the understated classics (currently it’s number 66) at some point. I thought about bumping “Outside” up the running order but I’d like to be objective about it when its turn comes. Station To Station “It’s not the side effects of the cocaine / I’m thinking it must be love” sings Bowie on the title track of his tenth studio album “Station To Station”, released in 1976.
Tags: Music, Album Digest, David Bowie, Sixteen